Woldingham School

Woldingham suits a girl who wants room to grow into herself without the hum of a bigger, busier school. It is an independent day and boarding school for girls aged 11 to 18, set at Marden Park in the Surrey countryside a short walk from Woldingham station, with hundreds of acres of fields and woodland. Boarding is flexible: full, weekly, or flexi up to three nights a week, and many families begin as day girls and shift towards boarding later. London is half an hour away by train.

The school was founded in 1842 as a Convent of the Sacred Heart, one of the oldest girls' schools in the country, and moved to Marden Park in 1946 after its Roehampton buildings were damaged in the war. It remains Catholic in foundation and open to girls of all faiths and none. Younger boarders share rooms of three or four in Marden House, and weekends run to Friday film nights, trips into local towns and a later wake-up before Sunday Mass. Drama has a long reputation here, and both Carey Mulligan and Emma Corrin passed through.

The Good Schools Guide found 'a small, friendly, commutable haven', and one parent's line is hard to better: 'your heart-rate drops as soon as you arrive.' Parents rate the heads of year highly and say the school talks to families rather than at them. Its own phrase is 'a greenhouse not a hothouse', a fair account of the pace. It suits a girl who is curious and willing but not yet loud about it, who would rather be known by name than by position, and who will take to the fields, the train and the long walk up the drive.